Hey everyone! Or considering no one has commented, I'm more than likely talking to myself at this point, but hey it's supposed to be cathartic to get your thoughts out there right? It's been another week or so, and I figured it was time to post. I suppose I need to get better at this sort of thing, and make it more interesting...how else am I supposed to get a following right? I expect you all to help pay for my retirement! heh.
Ok, so I'm laid up on the couch again. My physical therapy seems to have re-injured my knee, so since Monday I've been home from work again, with my knee propped up, along with ice and pain killers. However, I do go see the doctor this afternoon, though I'm not sure he'll say much more than keep it elevated and iced. Hopefully I'll get more pain killers out of it, at least those help dull the pain so I can walk around with crutches.
Well that's the depressing stuff out of the way.
I recently changed my callsign from KC9ZFI to K1BBB - a smaller and much easier to remember call. However, now all of the accounts that I've setup for KC9ZFI will need to be changed, and I also found out that you can't have a gmail account that is that short. So, I seem to have heaped a pile of "ugh" onto myself. So, as a note to all of you technicians out there who are thinking about changing your call, make sure you've thought everything through. ALSO, I found out that if you have a QRZ.com account, with a nice profile page, pictures, and a log book. This all gets completely wiped out when the FCC updates your call. Automatically. There is no back up, and QRZ.com's support team will be of no help. In fact, they may send you an email with spelling mistakes in it, like I got. Oh well, I still like my new call =)
I have some money coming in from taxes, and I'm thinking about spending a portion of it on radio equipment, and using the rest to pay off some bills. I'm torn between keeping my current HF rig (IC-761) and getting a mobile 2m/7cm unit for my car, or a handheld HT 2m/7c for general use. OR, forget all of that, and go with an IC-7100 - which does HF, +6, 2m and 70cm, as well as D-Star. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with this last option, and sell my current HF rig. I believe with the IC-7100, I'll be able to operate as a full base station at home, but also be able to take it with me to field day, or other club activities that we might do. Plus it does D-Star which is something I definitely want to play around with. I'll keep you all updated with what I decide to do...
We had our OGRES club meeting on Sunday, and it was fairly productive. We got some business out of the way, and discussed some events that we are going to do. We'll be going as a group to the Dayton Hamvention, in Ohio. That's probably going to turn out to be a one day event that we drive extra early in the morning to, and come back late in the evening. And then we talked about doing field day, which after the discussion it sounds as though we'll end up partnering with Goshen ARC and go to the Elkhart County Fairgrounds for their field day. I hope that we'll have some radios and antennas to take a long and setup, to help out. We'll also be having a DIY project day on April 27th. We'll be building a tape measure yagi, which will be used at a future fox hunt. Now's the time to start inviting people!
Well I haven't been on the air much, other than 2m repeater stuff. I feel like it's been so long since I've made a contact, although it's probably only been a couple weeks. I should probably take some time tonight and hobble down to the basement for a few minutes to see if anything is going on...
Oh! I've found a new interest in antennas. I think I might try a Full Wave Loop. I'm contemplating trying it with a 20m one first, which would be a relatively easy size to play around with. I wouldn't mind a 160-10m version, but those are over 550' in length, and I'd like to try it out first before I commit to a project that big. A 20m one is reasonable, and gets me on the air in a solid band. The biggest trick will be to get it up in the air without it touching other objects, and have it not be too near a power line. I'll have to think more on this, but will also have to wait till I can get up and around properly.
Ok, well I'm out of things to talk about for now. Keep checking back and I'll hopefully have some more interesting stuff to talk about soon. 73!
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